A10 is not quite perfect: But being there was A1

I read recently that West Midlands PTA were very pleased with their fifty odd Alexander bodied Volvo Ailsa buses and would have liked to have bought more but for political reasons they had to stay British and especially as the current standard bus, the Metrobus was built right on it's doorstep at Washwood Heath. There is some evidence of this as a borrowed new Strathcyde Volvo-Ailsa Citybus was painted in West Midlands colours and operated alongside the existing Swedish products from the former Midland Red Garage at Oldbury. I was glad to catch such a good shot of the bus still carrying it's Strathclyde fleet number A10 as it left the Bull Ring Bus Station in Birmingham as the direction of the bright sunlight was a bit tricky. I had to play with the contrast too to make it really sharp as at the time I was trying to get Ian Allan interested in my photography but even though they did use this one I'm afraid as you can all judge I didn't quite make the grade or as someone once told me, they didn't have a double-barrelled surname. True or not it always seemed to me like a cosy little club where they took it in turns to publish books using their own photos, sometimes time and time again to get the reproduction fees. Indeed the first time they used one of mine they attributed it to another author so that initially at least they got the 1.25p fee. (LOL)